'He was stolen from us': Victim in Brantford stabbing remembered

Stabbing victim remembered for his 'kind heart' From CTV Kitchener's Heather Senoran: The Brantford man who was the victim of a fatal stabbing has been identified as 54-year-old Don MacNeil.

KITCHENER — A man who was stabbed to death in his home in Brantford is being remembered as a kind and honest man who has his life cut short.

Friends have confirmed to CTV News that Don MacNeil was the 54-year-old man fatally stabbed in a home on Wayne Drive, Monday.

They say that MacNeil, who owned an auto repair shop, had a good reputation in the community.

"If he knew the car needed something and you didn't have the money he would say, 'no problem, pay me when you can,'" remembers friend Bobby-Jo Hazel in a statement. "Just a straight up decent man."

"He wanted to be that honest mechanic, so that is what he hung his hat on," says Jody Russel, MacNeil’s ex-girlfriend.

Russel dated MacNeil for seven years and says she remained close friends with him after they split up.

"He knew how I felt about him, and I’ll miss him," she says.

Russell says she knew something was wrong Tuesday morning.

"When I go to work in the morning I have to drive by his place," she explains.

That’s when she saw yellow tape surrounding the area where police say a 54-year-old man was found dead inside a home with multiple stab wounds.

Friends say that man was MacNeil.

"The fact that we will never see him again and he was stolen from us," says Russel.

Shawn Macdonald tells CTV his family has known MacNeil for decades.

"Anyone that knows him will tell you he was the nicest man they know," Macdonald says in a statement. "He would sometimes fix my vehicle and not even charge me when I was young and broke."

In a release, Brantford police said they were contacted around 12 a.m. Tuesday by Perth County OPP in relation to "an individual involved in a traffic stop."

That led them to the home on Wayne Drive. On Twitter, police initially indicated they were there for a domestic disturbance, and had a section of the road blocked off.

Hours later, they announced that they had made an arrest in a connection to a stabbing death that happened there.

A 19-year-old man, who police have not named, has been charged with first-degree murder. Police say he and the victim were known to each other.

Brantford Police believe the stabbing happened sometime Monday.

In a news release issued Tuesday, police had said that they would not confirm the identities of those involved because of a court-imposed publication ban.

CTV News has since confirmed with the Crown that the publication ban only covers what was said in the bail hearing and does not prevent the identification of the accused or the victim.

With reporting from Heather Senoran